phrenology

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[1] The summary of this distinguished lecturer's objections to phrenology is to be found in the Appendix to vol i. of "Lectures on Metaphysics," p. 404, et seq.

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Definitions (5)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun The study of the shape and protuberances of the skull, based on the now discredited belief that they reveal character and mental capacity.

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Examples (50)

  • The Review invents a new word for me—I am an “anti-body”; but the Outlook is the richest: I am the one man who believes in Spiritualism, phrenology, anti-vaccination, and the centrality of the earth in the universe, whose life is worth writing. —  Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2
  • It's called phrenology, and it allows you to determine a man's—I mean a person's—nature merely from studying the bumps on their head. —  FSFMagazine,May2007
  • In an age when phrenology was a mania, its masters found in his cranium the organs of what they called imagination and causality, of individuality, comparison, and locality--by which jargon they meant to say that he had a strong power of imaging and of inductive reasoning, a knowledge of men, of places, and of things The life of the young officer had thus far been so commonplace as to awaken little expectation for his future. —  The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte Vol. I. (of IV.)
  • Whoever disseminates true phrenology is a public benefactor Joseph Cook declared: "Choosing a foreman or clerk, guiding the education of children, settling my judgment of men in public or private life, estimating a wife or husband, and their fitness for each other, or endeavoring to understand myself and to select the right occupation, there is no advice of which I so often feel the need as that of a thoroughly able, scientific, experienced and Christian phrenologist Oliver Wendell Holmes changed his views on phrenology in his maturer years and said: "We owe phrenology a great debt. —  To Infidelity and Back
  • When his life as a student came to an end, he returned home with his whole faculties of curiosity and enthusiasm concentrated upon natural history, phrenology, and animal magnetism. —  Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) Essay 7: W.R. Greg: A Sketch
 

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Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French phrénologie = Spanish frenologia = Portuguese phrenologia = Italian frenologia, from Greek φρήν (φρεν-), heart, mind, + -λογία, from λέγειν, speak: see -ology.
 

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/frəˈnɑlədʒi/
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